Mechanization

In the seventeenth century, medicine and science took a decidedly mechanistic
turn as they both came to reject Aristotelian explanations in favor of
mechanical ones. Vaguely understood souls and faculties were no longer
accepted as viable explanations, and instead, natural phenomena were
interpreted almost entirely through matter in motion and atomic principles.
The Lilly Library's collection includes some of the most significant
works of mechanistic medicine from the seventeenth century.

One of René Descartes' most significant scholarly
contributions was in the field of physiology. He was one of the
first to think of man's body — from the movements
of muscles to the action of the brain — as a machine
governed by mechanistic principles

L'Homme was originally written in French and intended
to be an appendix to Descartes' Discours de la
méthode, published in 1637. However, in 1633
Descartes chose not to publish the work as its mechanistic view of
man could have been condemned as heretical by the Catholic Church,
much as Galileo's views had recently been officially
condemned in 1633.

L'Homme was, nevertheless, first published
posthumously in 1662 in a Latin translation by Florentinus Schuyl
(1619–1669). The French edition contains
Descartes' writings on the formation of the fetus, his
attempt to describe reproduction in a mechanistic fashion. It is
also filled with an extensive commentary by Louis de la Forge
(1632–1666), a friend and follower of Descartes who
practiced both medicine and philosophy. La Forge redrew many of the
original illustrations by Schuyl from the Latin editions.

Della misura dell'acque correnti (On the Measurement
of Running Waters) is considered as the beginning of modern
hydraulics. This particular book by Benedetto Castelli was owned by
his pupil Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (1608–1679) as can be
discerned by his signature on the title page. Moreover, Castelli was
a close personal friend of Galileo Galilei. As Stillman Drake notes,
"Castelli's importance to science lay not only in
his extension and dissemination of Galileo's work and
methods, but also in his long and faithful service to Galileo during
the two periods of crisis with the Inquisition."

Castelli was born in 1578 in Brescia, Italy and eventually moved to
Padua to study under Galileo. Upon Galileo's recommendation,
Castelli became Professor of Mathematics at the University of Pisa
in 1613. While he was still at Pisa he took an interest in the study
of water in motion, and as early as 1626 he sent two treatises on
the motion of rivers to Florence for Galileo's suggestions.
Castelli is also an important figure in the history of science
because of his work on illumination (he independently formulated the
photometric law), vision, after–images, and diaphragms in
telescopes. He was also a pioneer in the study of the differential
absorption of heat by different colors.

One of the most influential treatises of
seventeenth–century anatomy, this two–volume
text was written during the year prior to Borelli's death
and was published posthumously. It is one of the most important
works to establish the mathematical and mechanical study of muscles
as a science. The first volume is concerned with the external
motions produced by the muscles, and the second deals with the
internal motions of the muscles themselves as well as such topics as
circulation and respiration.

Little is known about Giovanni Borelli save that he was born in
Naples, Italy, and that he was a precocious student of mathematics.
It is unknown if he ever studied medicine formally, but we do know
that he studied mathematics with Benedetto Castelli
(1577–1644) in Rome.

During the seventeenth century, traditional ideas about the human
body and its governance by various souls and vague powers began to
give way to mechanistic explanations. Scientists and physicians who
adopted this latter view and applied mechanical principles to living
things have been commonly referred to as
"iatrophysicists." Despite Borelli's
commitment to iatrophysics and mechanical principles, he believed
that all of the mechanical movements in the body were ultimately
governed by a soul.

Robert Boyle (1627–1691), chemist, inventor, natural
philosopher, physicist, and mechanist was also a student of
medicine. He retained an interest in medicine all throughout his
career, but particularly in his later years when he published
several treatises devoted to what he called the medical sciences.
These included his Memoirs for the Natural History of Human
Blood (1684) and his Medicina Hydrostatica (1690).
This latter work was one of the last that Boyle published during his
lifetime. In it he argued that by weighing bodies in water and
comparing their weight in air, one could deduce from the proportion
of weight to water the specific gravity of bodies. Thence one could
determine if a given material was a counterfeit or the real
thing.

A major anatomical find of the seventeenth century. Steno showed that
saliva was produced in some glands at the back of the mouth and that
phlegm did not descend from the brain — thus disproving on
anatomical grounds an influential view dating from antiquity.